The Inkjet Conference (TheIJC), which was held Oct. 23-24, 2017 in Dusseldorf, Germany, featured a record number of presenters, exhibitors and attendees. For the first time, TheIJC featured a Plenary session as well as three concurrent tracks.

Organizers and exhibitors reported that TheIJC conference was a success this year. ESMA CEO Peter Buttiens, who co-organizes the show with co-founder Steve Knight, said that TheIJC has been a major success.

“In four years, we have almost doubled the number of presentations and more than doubled the number of tabletops, with 36 new tabletops this year,” said Buttiens. “In addition, 74 new companies sent delegates this year, with 195 new attendees.

“The number of exhibitors and delegates bring together so many possibilities,” added Buttiens. “The level of presentations was exceptional. We have been reinventing TheIJC every year. We went to the Plenary sessions and three tracks this year. We don’t want repetition from year to year. We have 40% new exhibitors, and they bring new subjects. We have 60% more delegates. It is the platform for inkjet.”

“The people who joined us here really make the event very enjoyable to see companies and the exchange of ideas going on,” noted Knight. “The people in this industry are making this possible. We can see the effort that went into the presentations. This is the biggest inkjet technical event in the world. People who are here are building the future.”

Exhibitors agreed that TheIJC Conference continues to grow in influence. Sun Chemical has been attending since the conference began in 2014, and Peter Saunders, global business director Digital for Sun Chemical, said the growth is noticeable.

“It is a heck of a lot larger than it originally was,” said Saunders. “This year feels a lot bigger. There’s a lot of new faces here. For us, it is most important that the OEM equipment and printhead manufacturers are here, as these relationships are critical.”

“It is amazing how this conference has developed since 2014. It has grown by three to four times with more people coming,” added Matthew Schieber, product manager, solvent- and water-based inks for Marabu. “We have many of our R&D people here. We see collaboration partners here and are working on projects with people we have met at previous shows. This show is increasing in value.”

Discussions on Inkjet Inks

The Inkjet Conference began on Oct. 23, the day before the main event, with three half-day workshops:

Introduction to Inkjet: Johannes Renner (iPrint) and Steve Knight (TheIJC).

The Innovation Menu: Eddy Hagen (insights4print).

Digital Textile Printing: Facing the Reality - Prof. Marc van Parys (TexZeppelin), Thomas Poetz (3T) and Jan Baden (druckprozess).

Kodak’s Dan Denovsky opened the Plenary session with his talk on “Expanding the Boundaries with Continuous Inkjet.” He began with a brief history on digital printing technologies and Kodak’s focus on water-based pigment inks, which he said can print on almost any surface.

“Digital printing has been a complement and replacement for offset for 50 years,” Denovsky said. “Mainstream technology has to replace the incumbent technology. It has to have image quality, productivity and cost to replace the incumbent technology.

“Our first generation of digital printing was continuous inkjet, which was founded when we were a division of Mead,” Denovsky continued. “With Ultrastream, we now have sheetfed offset class quality.”

HP’s Craig Olbrich discussed “Thermal Inkjet Printhead Technology for Industrial Print.” Olbrich noted that thermal inkjet has been a staple of consumer and office printing for three decades, and HP is using its scalable printhead technology to grow into industrial applications.

“HP dye-based inks have excellent color that is good for home printing, while our pigmented inks are ideal for color office printing,” Olbrich said. “Latex is good for signage and is environmentally friendly, and solvent-based inkjet inks are designed for packaging.”

One area where HP has evolved is the number of nozzles in its printheads.

“We have been focused on adding nozzles to our printheads over the years,” he observed. “In 1984, our ThinkJet had 12 nozzles. Today, our new PageWide Pro X B/A3 has 56,000 nozzles.”

After the Plenary Session, TheIJC broke off into three concurrent tracks. During Track 1, Dr. Stéphane Biry of BASF gave a talk on “Pigments for Inkjet Food Packaging Printing.”

“Digital printing can compete in any packaging application type,” said Dr. Biry. “The packaging market is $500 billion. Food packaging is 50% of the global consumer packaging market, and 75% of packaging is printed. The penetration of digital packaging is 5%, with CAGR of 15% through 2020, while digital labels are growing at 13.3% CAGR through 2020.”

Dr. Biry added that packaging inks are a sensitive application and are strongly regulated globally. “All printing inks have potential to migrate,” he added. “Low migratory/non-migratory ink components should be selected whenever possible.”

One concern is primary aromatic amines (PAAs), which are additives to some pigments; PAAs can be found in azo pigments – yellow, orange, red and magenta – which make up 50% of organic pigments. “Organic pigments have no or extremely low potential to migrate, but primary aromatic amine impurities in azo pigments could migrate,” said Dr. Biry. “There are pigments that are PAA free, such as isoindoline yellow, DPP and copper pthalocyanine.”

Simon Daplyn of Sensient followed with “Digitising the Printing Process for Flooring, Furnishing and Other Functional and Industrial Applications.”

“Every substrate has different nuances,” Daplyn said. “Ink requirements include high printing reliability and consistency, with little downtime and maintenance, and you need performance at production speeds. Printhead and system compatibility is important, as is regulatory. Price is a massive consideration, but quality and reliability should also be a consideration.”

Daplyn gave the example of wood laminates for flooring. “Inkjet is used for its ability to vary its design, from wood or stone graphics,” he said. “This requires high color and thermal stability. The big challenge is the substrate, which is highly porous for resins, as melamine must be impregnated into the surface, as well as controlling metamerism, or how the color looks in different lighting.

“Another industry that is wide open for inkjet is printed circuit board manufacturing, as inkjet is additive,” Daplyn added. “You can eliminate photomasks – more environmentally friendly and simplifies manufacturing. Other uses for inkjet are 3D printing, contact lenses, deposit resins for sandpaper, solar, color filters for screens, flexible electronics and OLED displays. Digital print is ideal in a materials deposition tool within a manufacturing process.”

Track 2 opened with “Drivers and Requirements for Next Generation Digital Textile Inks,” by Dr. Hamid Shirazi of Fujifilm Imaging Colorants. Dr. Shirazi noted that in the 1850s, Sir William Perkin developed the first dye, which led to his further discoveries in organic chemistry. By 1900, more than 2,000 colorants were developed.

Dr. Shirazi then discussed the different types of textile inks, and the differences between dyes and pigments.

“A dye is a single molecule, and pigments are particles, which are more lightfast,” he noted. “Textile ink usage depends upon the fabric. For cellulosic inks like cotton or linen, reactive dyes are used.

Acid dyes are used for polyamide fabrics like nylon or silk. Direct dyes are ideal for leather or paper. Dispense dyes are for polyester, and pigments for multi-fiber applications. Pigmented inkjet inks are very good for lightfastness, which is useful for outdoor applications and fabrics.”

Dr. Shirazi then discussed the advantages of inkjet printing of textiles.

“Digital printing for textiles is ideal for sampling and proofing, short runs, inventory management, fast fashion and fashion cycles, personalization and customization and ecommerce,” he observed.

“Analog is not agile or flexible. If a rotary screen printer has 10,000 designs, they have to keep 40,000 screens in stock. Meanwhile, e-commerce requires that customer receives their order within 48 to 72 hours of ordering.”

In Track 3, Dr. Kerstin Gläser of Hahn-Schickard Society discussed “Inkjet and Aerosol Jet in the Field of Microtechnology.”

“Printed sensors include temperature sensors, strain sensors, intrusion sensors, magnetic field, gas and touch sensors,” Dr. Glaser said. “Inkjet can be used to print these sensors. I think inkjet has a chance in printed electronics but there are some challenges.”

Enrico Sowade of Chemnitz University of Technology closed Track 3 with “Inkjet Printing Technology for Printing Functional Layers.” Sowade showed a range of inkjet-printed electronic devices, including resistors, capacitors, diodes, antennas and thin-film transistors, printed sieves for filter applications, printed self-assembled monolayers and others.

“We are using piezo inkjet technology for doing functional printing because we need high flexibility,” Sowade said. “We have sheetfed and web-fed printing capabilities. For printed resistors, we use silver nanoparticle inks and Fujifilm Dimatix printheads to print thousands of printed resistors with a yield of close to 100%. We sinter the nanoparticles to create the dry electrical conductive layer.

We also printed several hundred antennas and coils, as well as capacitors.”

Sowade reported that inkjet printing has potential in the printed electronics market. “Inkjet printing is a fully additive process where the ink is deposited only at positions where it is required,” he added. “It is a flexible and reliable technology.”

During the second day of talks, Dr. Marc Graindourze of Agfa discussed “Industrial Inkjet Printing Solutions from the Perspective of the Ink Design.” He noted that Agfa’s UV inks are used in decoration, product printing, packaging, marking and coding and variable data documents and labels, and offered three examples of inkjet printing.

“Decoration of laminates allows personalization with a UV ink on top of the laminate with a varnish on top for protection,” said Dr. Graindourze. “It also allows production of new designs, short runs and variable runs. It is replacing gravure printing, as inkjet offers short runs using water-based inks.”

Dr. Graindourze noted that packaging, including labels, direct-to-shaped packaging such as tubes and boxes, migration-sensitive packaging and pharma packaging, are important markets for Agfa’s UV inks.

“You have to select the ink by application, substrate and process,” said Dr. Graindourze. “For example, last stage printing of a box allows you to print exact amounts with variable box sizes and image changes. Ink is a key element to the print solution.

“UV inkjet is a proven technology – it is extremely reliable, and we are over 200 meters a minute today,” he added. “I’m a strong believer in UV. UV inks can fit to a large variety of applications.”

Frank de Jonge of Armor Industrial Inks concluded Track 1 with his talk on “Inkjet Ink for Printing on Flexible Packaging,” and the challenges of printing aqueous inks for non-porous surfaces. Armor is an industry leader in ink cartridges and thermal transfer ribbons, and is now branching out into new markets.

“We want new sustainable products,” said de Jonge. “This includes our industrial inks division.”

Flexible packaging is a growing sector. Pira estimates that the flexible food packaging market is $221 billion, and Armor is entering this field.

“Print on demand enables new marketing strategies, including personalization, and has ecological advantages, including reducing stock levels and producing only what you need,” said de Jonge. “One challenge is that we want to print with water and plastic doesn’t print well with water, but only water-based inks can reach all of the requirements of regulatory institutions.

“The drivers for packaging printers to go digital are short production runs with no set-up cost, personalized printing for individuals, and mass customization as a short-term target,” he added. “However, cost and speed are a barrier to go to real digital production Only water-based inks can meet the regulatory requirements.”

During Track 3, Daisuke Hamada of Kao Collins discussed “Advances in Water-Based Ink Solutions,” an important topic as companies look to move away from solvent-based solutions.

“The weakness of water-based inkjet ink is drying performance on non-absorbent substrates like films compared to other inkjet ink solutions such as energy curing and solvents,” said Hamada. “To avoid color mixing is the biggest challenge for water-based inks as there is no penetration of the ink into the substrate. You need stable jetting even at high concentration of pigment as well as small droplets.”

Hamada said that pigment dispersion stability is one key for success. “Kao’s Pigment Nano-Dispersion Technology features encapsulation by a special polymer,” he added. “Pigment dispersion stability in the water-based ink was found to be a key for printing on films. Ink formulation could improve the image quality minimizing color mixing.”

Digital printing is finding opportunities in wallcoverings. Dr. Veena Sarojiniamma of Industrial Inkjet discussed “Inkjet for High Speed Wallpaper Applications.” Dr. Sarojiniamma noted that new developments in single-pass digital printing have opened up opportunities for interior designs.

“Digital printing is a small portion of the wallcovering market, but wallcoverings are growing in popularity,” Dr. Sarojiniamma said. “Digital can be customized and offers short runs, and producers are looking for something new. The wallpapering market requirements are extreme. It requires high jetting reliability, low gloss, good wash/scrub resistance, meet regulatory standards and be low cost. Still, there is a real demand for digital.”

On the topic of screnprinting vs. inkjet, Matsui’s Jesse Martinez covered “Revolution of T-Shirt Printing.” Martinez compared the combination of screen and inkjet printing vs. PVC plastisol printing. He noted that the speed of screen and inkjet printing has increased to 450 shirts per hour.

“Screenprinting has its advantages and disadvantages,” he noted. “You are limited to large production runs. But with hybrid printing for T-shirts, a white opaque layer is screenprinted on a color fabric, with an inkjet color printed over the opaque layer. It doesn’t require many screens or pretreatment. It is good for samples or for multiple different designs in a high production volume.” 

Next year, TheIJC will hold its first conference in the US, from April 12-13 at The Westin O’Hare in Chicago, IL. For more information, contact ESMA at info@esma.com or info@theijc.com.